


Statement of...

by cursed_core



Series: The Marvel Archives [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:47:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25865383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cursed_core/pseuds/cursed_core
Summary: Jon gets a rather interesting meeting at the Institute
Series: The Marvel Archives [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876885
Kudos: 27





	Statement of...

Jonathan Sims leans back in his chair trying to place where he has seen the twenty year old redhead watching from across the desk, standing in the doorway to his office.  _ Celebrity? Can’t be, she has a distinct look… where have I seen that look? That half smile?  _

“Hello I presume this is The Magnus Institute?” 

Her obvious Russian accent brings him back to the moment. “Ah… yes however we are not open to the public.”

“I came a long way to give you a statement.”

Jon pauses for a second. “Oh… Oh! Take a seat please.” She sits on the chair closest to the desk when he brings out a tape recorder. “We are going to use this to record your statement.”

She nods, taking in the technology which by many is considered ancient. “That is…”

Jon cuts her off. “I know it is old.”

“Not what I was going to say.”

“What then?”

“That I am actually older than that tape recorder.”

“ _ Pardon me? _ ”

“I will explain.” 

Jon gives a nod, immediately looking uneasy at her while in contrast she is relaxed. He hesitates before speaking. “Statement of....” Jon raises a brow. “What  _ is  _ your name?”

“Natalia Alianova Romanova.” 

Suddenly everything for him clicked. She is famous, known as Black Widow in a team of high powered individuals but….  _ I thought she was young. Younger than me at least.  _ He repeated the name. “Statement taken January twelfth of 2015 at 3:04pm. Statement is regarding…”

“Two things. The first being Red Rooms the second is me and a few other individuals.”

Jon nods again out of reflex. “Statement taken directly from the subject. Go ahead.”

Natalia starts. “In order to get a clear view of how I ended up where I am you need context. I was born in between the two World Wars in 1928, in Stalingrad which is now known as Volgograd due to events that happened in the Second World War. Of course this was only six years after the Soviet Union formed so things were… tense. My family we didn’t have much but a house and what my father, Ivan, mana-”

“Full names please.” He interjects with a slightly tired tone from having to constantly remind people of this  **small** detail.

“This was decades ago so I won’t have middle names for you or some at all for you as they have faded from memory. Is that alright?”

“Quite. Continue.”

She does so without much thinking. “Ivan Romanov, managed to get for our family. Everything was going fine until my parents became outspoken against the government when I was about four so 1932. My brother, Alexi Romanov, was only a baby at two years old then. In that year both of our parents died. They say it was an accident but we all know differently especially with ties to the former royal family in the form of an affair… Anyway back on track. From the burning house all I had were the clothes on my back and a doll my mom managed to give to me. I am briefly lucky that a statesman also saved my helpless brother and brought the both of us to an orphanage. That is what set up everything for when the state came calling when I was eight years old. All the girls who eight were gathered to stand in a singular line while everyone else huddled to the side watching while statesmen looked us over to see our health as well as our… looks I guess. We needed to be pretty. I was standing next to who was my best friend at the time. She was important but I can’t remember her name even that moment has almost faded like an old photograph.” Natalia pauses taking a breath. “I was the only girl chosen from that particular orphanage. A knowing look to my best friend and then over to my brother. Nothing was said but we both knew, the state needed me. They put me into a car and we left into the countryside where there was just field after field of blinding white like nothing I have seen until then, eventually approaching a small palace that belonged to some lord or duke, I think? I don’t know the words. Anyway it was from that era out front were armed guards, surrounding a bonfire and a single changing screen. I was ushered out of the car to these guards, one of them handing me a small stack of clothes shoes on top I changed into the clothing. A red plaid skirt, scratchy short sleeved button up and black flats. I was shivering at this point clutching the doll and my old clothes.”

“I still don’t see how any of this is relevant.” 

“We are getting to it please be patient.” 

“I have no patience when I spend my day on long meandering statements.”

“Well trust me when I say you will want to hear what these particular state schools are called and what it started to shape us into!”

Jon puts his head in his hands briefly before looking back up at the dead serious Natalia. “Fine. Fine.”

“Thank you. Long story short as you are in a hurry as the guards they burned the clothing first and then the doll from my mother. I remember one of them saying ‘it is to remove you from your old life so nothing really can hold you back.’ I didn’t know how right that statement was as we learned what we were there to become. The starting point of perfect spies and assassins. By extensions of that we were also perfect weapons. The starting program for us was the Black Widow program… where I got my ever famous name from. There they wanted to focus on the arts and politics with light focus on fighting. Of course we did fight, I have broken many noses there but then I actually still did believe in a god. We all did. So we prayed, we ate and we all trained together. We braided each other's hair of the assassinations we would do in the future. Of what diplomat’s blood might lucky enough grace our skin. That was my life until I was fourteen. That was when we met the Red Rooms, an expansive maze over the northernmost tundra of Russia, far out of reach of any civilization. I didn’t know exactly how to leave there until I was eighteen. I didn’t truly see or look at the sky again until that point.” She closes her eyes taking another brief breath trying to gather the next words in English. “They moved us there with sacks on our head, not letting us see a thing. Once we were there and allowed to see we were between walls of pure cement, brutalist architecture at its peak. Entering to the actual insides of the compound we were greeted with a moist heat and this sweet rot. That sweet rot I would come to find out is the smell of decaying humans. The new routine was fighting with some politics, propaganda and art mixed in. Of course ballet stayed, it always stayed. It gave us sheer control over us and how we moved. The classes were always randomly dotted around the maze of hallways and rooms. The maze felt like it changed every single time I walked through it. The only part that ever stayed the same was when we walked by the entrance or the wing with the rooms that made up the Red Rooms part of the compound. Those rooms that never changed were the torture chambers were, if we slipped or if missed something.  _ Anything _ . We would be subjected to that hell. There is a reason why I became an atheist while trapped there. No decent god would ever look on that place and allow it. A notable incident in those times however is when I managed to get between the walls. The space between the insides of the compound and the outer fortress wall. In that small liminal space I felt the freezing outside air for the first time in two years. This happened when I was sixteen and cemented everything that was drilled into me through the same ballet routines, the same movie which we repeated word for word, and even the same fights. Every. Single. Day. It was the torture in which I almost saw death and release. I was stabbed with precision and had particular bones broken. Obviously none of that was pleasant but we were just objects that facilitated a means to an end. Through the years we became one with the stench of rot with those that survived. At the start there were twenty eight girls. At the end there were seven. Now after all these years there is only one. That is me. In between the moments of bodies and where they would end up which was a mystery until I saw the door to the basement and I reached out to open it. A cold metal hand from him, Zima, placed a hand on my shoulder and softly spoke to me in Russian. That is where the girls go to become monsters, unlike you and the others. I still don’t know what was down there. I never needed to know and I never will need to.”

“Sorry… who is Zima?” 

“Zima is the Russian term for winter. In English spy circles he was only known as a rumour until events in Washington, D.C. last year. He was known as the Winter Soldier, or as you may know him as James Buchanan Barnes. Well, you should know him at least if you are familiar with Captain America’s past at all. To continue on with everything after graduation I got the Russian strain of the super soldier serum. The process was extremely painful, feeling like a small sliver of glass existed in every part of my blood stream at once. That lasted twelve hours, with that strain though I now reached the level of Zima and Captain America. That is also when I left the Red Rooms to go out into the world during the Cold War and be what the state needed, an asset. However with that I have not seen the Red Rooms since and no matter how hard I try I cannot find it again.”

Jon pauses before speaking. “Thank you for this but there is no way you can just lose a building. Are you sure you haven’t lost where it is in the… tundra?”

“I am absolutely sure I knew where it  _ was _ . There are rumours in the Russian government that it still exists.”

“Do you have any proof of any of this?”

“Only if you want to track birth records and if you can read Russian.”

“So why come here and divulge any of this? What is so weird about the secret espionage of the Soviet Union?”

“It was… the control. I haven’t felt real since I entered the Red Rooms, everything became hollow like I was serving something else. After the serum that hollowness continued deeper and deeper. To this day I am  _ nothing  _ but an empty shell who just does… routine. I still have the same routine I kept in the Red Rooms when time allows if I cannot then I get agitated like a part is missing from me. They… unmade me. Completely. Do you know what it is like to not feel human but fake it everyday?” Jon shakes his head. “It is a heavy mask or crown that you have to keep very balanced or it may slip off, shattering every single illusion about you. I am not in control, never was.”

“Statement ends.” Jon clicks the tape recorder off. Natalia rummages in her bag handing over a few very worn diaries, a peculiar red book with both a photo and a copy of an ancient birth certificate inside. He gingerly takes them. “Books aren’t proof.”

“You can take a sample and carbon date it if you want.”

He thinks. “So 1928… that means you were around when Chernobyl happened then?”

“Excuse me?”

“Chernobyl.”

“I was actually in Norway at the time but nice assumption.”

“Look I am trying to grasp this from the point of view of someone who hasn’t lived history like you. Given that you are also a spy, you have to have answers to what happened in the world.”

“And because I am a spy I am keeping the rest of my secrets. What I told you is enough to get you hunted by fucking Russia.” Jon flinches at her swearing. “I have a flight to catch. We have a public P.O. box for the tower if you ever want to mail those items back.” 

Natalia picks up her bag and bounds out into the main halls of the institute. The encounter has given Jon an overall weird feeling of unease, especially when staring at a photograph of a group of young girls who all have at least killed once. 


End file.
